


house home heart

by emmypenny (burritosong)



Category: Marvel (Movies), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Clint Barton is William Brandt, Fix-It, M/M, Marriage Proposal, worst proposal ever
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-24
Updated: 2012-08-24
Packaged: 2017-11-12 19:50:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/495037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/burritosong/pseuds/emmypenny
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint boxes up everything in the apartment. He doesn't bother to separate his things from Phil's. Over the years it's all merged together. Phil's stuff, his stuff--it's all their stuff, but now it's his to pack up.</p>
<p>Or, how Clint finds a home twice over.</p>
            </blockquote>





	house home heart

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally going to solely be a fix-it fic but the idea stalled in my head and when I got my writing mojo back it had evolved into something different.

Agent Coulson's office barely changed in all the time that it was occupied by him. He's rotated the desk to face the door and added a couch (usually occupied by Barton). There are stacks of paperwork in various states of completion. An extra suit usually hangs in one corner, still in its garment bag from the dry cleaner's.

Phil Coulson's apartment, on the other hand, has changed drastically since the day he moved in. He's redone the floors and repainted the walls. One room was converted first into a shrine for his vintage Captain America memorabilia, only to later have a small corner re-dedicated to Iron Man. His cd collection, which once solely housed big band jazz and classic rock, now also hosts Lady Gaga, LMFAO, and Carly Rae Jepsen. His TiVo still records Supernanny and Hoarders, but he's added Adventure Time and Victorious to its line up. His clothes take up half the closet and half the dresser where they once took up all the space.

Phil is somewhere between naive and jaded when he signs the papers for it, still in the happy place where he's tried enough to be trusted but not so seasoned that he's lost all hope. Nick tells him to give it time, and that soon he'll be just as hopeless as the rest of them.

He's still innocent enough to not realize just how all-consuming S.H.I.E.L.D. is, still thinks that one day he'll have someone to come home to, that the second bedroom will one day house a baby instead of just his Captain America collection.

It doesn't take much longer for one too many bad ops to convince him otherwise.

He leaves S.H.I.E.L.D. at the end of the day (later and later) and returns to an empty apartment where he eats too much junk food and drinks too much coffee while scouring the internet for the next thing he'll add to his ever-expanding collection. He goes to bed (alone) and wakes up for an early morning jog and some coffee. He goes to work and repeats the entire process day after day, only breaking routine when he's sent on a mission.

Until one day when he comes home to find a stray Agent Barton on his couch. Phil tells him he can stay the night; he never really leaves.

Clint doesn't have much stuff to migrate over. In lieu of taking over drawers and shelves and closets though, he rearranges things. Mostly it's in the process of looking through Phil's things, and Phil's pretty sure that Clint purposely puts everything in the wrong place so that Phil will know he was there, was looking at that book or this magazine. And in that way, he moves into Phil's space until it no longer belongs his, and they both start referring to everything in its small walls as theirs.

* * *

"I hate your Captain America collection," Clint says one night while they're lying beside each other. "Like, I really hate it. Of all of the things you could collect, you had to choose the one thing that's just about impossible to find. And of course you're a fucking perfectionist about it so half the time you find stuff it's not even in good enough condition to make you happy."

"Clint."

It's an old conversation, and Phil still has a hard time forgetting the unforgiving squawk of laughter that Clint had issued upon first laying eyes on what they now refer to only as The Room.

"I don't think you understand how much I hate your Captain America stuff."

"I'm really not in the mood for this right now," Phil says. And he isn't, because Clint is ruining the amazing orgasm he just had.

He at least has the sense to look embarrassed. "That came out wrong."

"You don't say."

"Shit. Just--hang on." Clint gropes for the jacket he'd thrown on the floor earlier and fishes something from it. "That's not what I meant to say at all. I was supposed to say something about how, you know. I've got all these really terrible flaws but you put up with me anyway. But you're not perfect either, because you've got flaws--shit, this is not how I planned this. I should have just listened to Tasha.

"What I mean is--" He turns back toward Phil. "I don't care about your stupid collection, because I love you, and I hope you feel the same way because I want to marry you. And I got you this because I thought you'd like it better than a ring."

It's the infamous Cap Punching Hitler card. Phil's been searching for it for years.

He reaches out, feels the sleeve, and takes it from Clint.

He can't breathe. He thinks his heart might explode.

He's out of bed and in The Room, placing the card in its proper place with the others before he realizes what Clint actually said.

When he gets back to their bedroom, Clint's pulling his pants on.

"Where are you going?"

Clint shrugs, doesn't meet his eyes. "Back to base. I need to get some practice in."

He wants to say he's sorry for ruining Clint' s (really terrible) proposal, that he wishes he wasn't such a hopeless fanboy, and could they please try it again. What he actually says is much less eloquent.

"How are we supposed to have engaged sex if you're not here?"

Clint freezes, and stares at him with an open mouth. Then he grins and cheers and tries to tackle Phil, but his pants are still around his thighs and he ends up falling on the bed and crawling over to Phil to drag him down into a kiss.

"Promise me you'll tell Natasha that I proposed over a romantic candlelit dinner and not right after sex?"

"Only if you promise to tell no one that my first response was to run out of the room."

* * *

They tell Nick the next morning and he spends a good fifteen minutes yelling at both of them not to fuck it up before dismissing them.

Clint sags as the door closes behind them. "Wow."

"The screaming means he cares," Phil assures, pulling him in for a kiss.

Maria tells them to get a room as she passes by.

* * *

Clint boxes up everything in the apartment. Some of the things, mostly furniture and the Cap and Iron Man merchandise, go into storage. The majority of it heads to Stark Tower. (It might be Avengers Tower now, the jury's still out on that verdict in his opinion.) He doesn't bother to separate his things from Phil's. Over the years it's all merged together. Phil's stuff, his stuff--it's all their stuff, but now it's his to pack up.

He packs everything into Phil's car for the drive back to the tower. It takes several trips, and he takes his time. It's weird to go back to communal living again. He'd gotten used to having his own space. Sure, it had been a shared space with Phil, but that had been by choice (Phil's choice to share the space, Clint's to move in). Tony's given them each their own floor and built Clint a truly amazing range to practice on, but it's not enough. Clint's gotten used to having his space, to having some degree of separation between his work and his private life. He's not happy he's going to lose it.

Finally, he carries the last of the boxes to the floor he's been assigned. (It's not his. His living room is in the apartment he just emptied, that he used to share with Phil.)

He glances around, the entire floor still smells new and it's a blank slate the likes of which Clint has never had before. He half-heartedly unpacks a few things, but gives up when he realizes that he has no idea how to recreate Phil's intensely detailed sock-and-underwear sorting system.

He wanders down to the shared floor finally, because he can't stand the thought of putting his stuff out in Tony Stark's space. The communal floor houses a tv room (there really isn't any other way to refer to a room that's mostly all television), kitchen, and a large dining room. There's probably more to it, but Clint hadn't paid attention to the tour.

He hears Jo Frost's voice just before rounding the corner. He stops in the doorway.

It's Natasha that catches sight of him first. On anyone else her expression would be an eye roll. "Everybody up and out. These two need some time alone."

"Tasha, we don't--"

"You're moping."

"I'm not--"

"You kind of are," Stark says and yeah, no. The last thing Clint needs is for Tony fucking Stark to team up with Natasha when it comes to riding his ass about acting like a child.

Natasha gives him a Very Significant Look as she herds everyone out of the room.

Clint sighs internally and throws himself carefully on the couch. He bumps Phil's knee with his own.

"Finished moving all our stuff."

Phil's knee presses back. "You didn't have to do it by yourself."

Clint concentrates very hard on watching Jo corral a horde of psychotic children and their clueless parents. This is really the last place that he wants to have this, or any, conversation. "Yeah, because you're totally up for heavy lifting."

"You could have gotten Thor or--"

"If you say Steve, I am going to haul your entire Captain America collection out of storage and mail it to Stark. You will seriously never hear the end of it."

"It's for the good of the team, Clint."

Yeah, he really does not want to have this conversation here.

"Even Natasha's started to open up--"

"Nat's idea of opening up is sharpening her knives while glaring at you."

"And she was doing just that this morning at breakfast."

Clint snorts. "Who was she glaring at? Stark?"

"You'd know if you were there."

Clint looks away from the screen to finally meet Phil's steady gaze. "This is really important to you, isn't it?"

"Don't you think that with all that's happened, the world could use a few heroes?"

"I'm not a hero. I'm just some guy with a bow. And don't," he drops his head to Phil's shoulder, "pull any of that 'You're my hero' crap." He settles his hand gently against Phil's chest, feeling the thick bandages that are mostly hidden by his shirt.

Phil shifted so that he could wrap his arm around Clint's shoulders. "Am I really that cheesy?"

"Do you want me to list it out? Because I can. I have a list. Pages and pages of proof that Phil Coulson is the world's biggest sap."

"If only you were so diligent about your paperwork."

"My paperwork's not your problem anymore," Clint reminds him, and Phil's quiet after that.

* * *

Clint and Phil's floor at Avengers Tower is been custom designed for them. It includes a shooting range and a workout room with circus equipment. There is a one-room armory split neatly in half with bows and guns. One room has been designed to perfectly display a Captain America collection.

Right now, the only one thing Clint wants more than to get up to his floor is a bowl of cereal despite the fact that it's three in the afternoon.

(One effect of being a superhero is that cereal companies want to use your likeness to sell their brand. They then create a cereal featuring an off-kilter marshmallow version of you. And of course when Tony discovers this fact he decides he needs to buy several cases of the stuff. Luckily, it's delicious.)

He heads straight for the kitchen only to find Tony slumped on the counter in front of the coffee machine. He's shoving plain slices of bread into his mouth at a rate that Clint would find terrifying if he hadn't seen how quickly Tony could eat before.

"JARVIS kick you out of the lab again?" Clint asks. He opens the refrigerator only to be dismayed to see someone's finished the milk. He grabs the pen from where it's hanging and scrawls "milk" on the shopping list.

"Steve, actually," Tony says around a mouthful of bread. "Apparently I don't get any more coffee unless I eat something solid."

"When he lets you back in could you work on those new arrowheads for me? This last batch blew up mid-air when I was testing them."

Tony grunts, trying to seem non-committal, but Clint isn't fooled. If there's one thing Tony can't tolerate, it's his tech blowing up on his team mates.

Clint grabs the box of cereal--good cereal is good cereal regardless if you have milk--before heading for the door.

"Hey, your kept man wanted to see you when you got back."

Clint pauses in the doorway and turns back to face him. "You better not be referring to my husband as my kept man. He will taze you."

Tony shrugs. "Phil was looking for you. Weren't you supposed to be back last night?"

"Got stuck in debriefing. If anyone ever asks you to work undercover with IMF, tell them no. Whatever they offer you is not worth it."

"I thought it was supposed to be a routine security detail."

"It was. And it was supposed to be classified."

"If it was supposed to be classified they shouldn't have made the information so easy to find. I have to look after my team," Tony says, and Clint would believe he was being serious about it if he hadn't overheard him joking about how lax the IMF's systems were at breakfast the day before he left.

"Okay, Mom. Are we done here? Phil's waiting. We haven't even had welcome home sex yet."

Tony groans and covers his ears. "Please get out of my kitchen."

"Our kitchen." Clint corrects him with a grin.

"I don't care whose kitchen it is, as long as you get out."

Clint salutes him with the cereal box as he heads towards the elevator with a single thought:

_It's good to be home._


End file.
